Forgotten.
I have this friend. Believe it or not, her real name is Sasha. We are really good friends, Sasha and me. At least I think so, anyways.
Only problem, I can't decide if I like her or not. Or even supposing I did, exactly what functional purpose that might serve. That's because every time we hang out it's always a direct result of the massive commitment of smack. We even met because of dope. An online newsgroup catering exclusively to hard drug users. She was giving some jizzface freshman helpful tips on how to synthesize heroin from readily available household ingredients in his mom's basement. Ammonium chloride. Muriatic acid. Activated charcoal. Absolutely. Listen, fuck your mother. Go blow yourself up. A relationship of mutual respect and understanding was born. In her drug fried brain I imagine this makes us the social equivalent of the last two ship wrecked albino amputees to survive amongst the island's sparsely populated dating scene. Either that or completely dispensable, like tissue paper. Nothing about her is genuine except her love for heroin, of that I can assure you.
She works in a laboratory. Not to shock you, but she's a real professional that Sasha. Every time I see her, without fail, she wears an immaculate white lab coat. This oversized coat acts like a cape, dragging just above the ground, creating a cloud of dust and debris behind the black spikes of her hooker's heels, which I suspect she uses more for psychological leverage than any sexual kink. In reality she couldn't possibly be an inch above five foot two. I must confess the notion struck me as more than just a little appealing. Lab technician by day, heroin aficionado by night. Dispensing sterile needles, micro wheel filters, and hydrochloric acid from forbidden pockets like cocaine rock candy and so much sought after confetti. A real red cross on heels. At one point I put some serious thought into opening up a needle exchange program down the front of her pants. Why the fuck not? She tells me stories of how almost all the doctors and medical professionals she knows are pillheads or pushers of some sort or another. The attending doc pops tranquilizers in the break room. Respected researchers simmer meth on their lunch hour. Chemists are the worst. They'll synthesize anything for the sake of ego, and then proceed to snort it all up their nostril in the name of science. Makes you wonder just how many of these professionals are one jack off short of a test tube. Reassuring. In a fucked up kind of way.
Maybe I romanticize it in my mind, this deeper, darker, idea of her. It's just that reality so rarely compares. It lacks a drug's promise of escape, or the total seduction of my imagination. I never said I wasn't fucked up too. The first time she laid that thick, syrupy sweet accent on me I nearly fell over in a fit of sheer absurdity. Did I mention she's Russian? No, no, please, this can't be for real. We drive around dilapidated ghettoes to score our impure powder with windows down and a mentholated cigarette dangling between both fingers. Her strange voice talks continual nonsense over the sounds of the radio. She could be strung out on acid for all I know. Half the time I feel like I'm in some low budget Soviet propaganda film with Borris the fucking spy, on a covert mission to sabotage the U.S. government. All that's missing are the subtitles. Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? Please check all that apply. Between puffs she tells me exactly two facts about Russia: It's really fucking cold, and she misses her dope.
The first time we hit it neither one of us had the patience or pleasure to waste with introductions. No how-do-you-do's when there is business to inject. Afterwards we talked. She told me a lot of things I won't repeat. Things that paralleled my life. Felt fucked up and familiar. I began to wonder was this all just dumb coincidence, or something actually more meaningful? She also told me ugly things. Truths I willed myself to forget. Like the prostitution.
Later on I met her middle aged client. He sat on my white living room sofa, balding, telling depressing stories about his many wildly successful attempts at published authorship. Third place for worst piece of shit in a short story contest goes to the older gentlemen without a future. His midsection sagged as if let down by a lifetime of microwaved dinners, and I knew instantly that to look inside his wallet would mean uncovering several small, worn, snapshots of his loving wife and three kids. Probably all gathered round together on the fucking lawn hugging the family dog. All the while: My doing more and more smack just to get the words out of my head as he talks about fucking Sasha. How he fucked her on the ride over. How he usually fucks her on Tuesdays. How he tries to fuck her on a semi-weekly basis. How when they fuck he loves to eat her pussy for hours. How much he loves the taste of it. She nods and plays along. He's telling me this, as we all sit calmly around my living room, like scattered chess pieces pretending not to understand that the only reason she does any of these things is the cash. The cash she needs to buy the drugs. The drugs she scores from her friend, who right now doesn't even fucking care if they're really truly friends, because the one thing she can focus on is fixing. To numb the whole night away with smiling novocain. And emerge from the bathroom five minutes from now, like any of this shit makes her not want to vomit all over the endless white tiled floor.